January 31, 2022 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Like me guessClimate change is believed to be the cause of the recent New England snowstorm (example from Bloomberg here). During that storm, Boston hit a 24-hour snowfall record at 23.6 inches.
However, most recently on January 6, we were informed by USAToday that Boston’s 316-day streak *without* an inch of snow since January 1st is due to global warming.
So that’s it? Is global warming causing less snow, or more snow?
When science makes conflicting claims, is it really science?
What’s coming next is an ice storm that will stretch all the way from the southern Rockies to northern New England. Below is the NAM model’s forecast for total snow, ice, and freezing rain (respectively) Tuesday night through Thursday night. All the forecasting models I follow (ECMWF, GFS, NAM, and Canadian) are generally consistent, with some differences in north-south locations:
Not shown is the western extension of this area to NW Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. Also not shown is the eastward spread of this mess into northern New England through Friday.
If anything like this forecast is verified, it will cause major disruption.
Related
